Five Times Alec Hardy Fell in Love
by Hazelmist
Summary: The first time she sees Alec Hardy fall in love, he's nine-years-old and they've just met. AU Slight Alec/Ex-wife & Alec/Ellie
1. Five Times He Fell In Love

**Five Times Alec Hardy Fell in Love**

 **By Hazelmist**

 **A/N: THIS IS AU! And it's NOT "When the Storm Breaks", although some of my AU head canon does leak in. I wrote this last year for nannyogg123/mykelara who asked a question about my OC Iris from my fic "When the Storm Breaks". Iris is a maternal figure I dreamed up, she basically adopted Alec when his mother died, and his father was incapable of caring for him. I wrote something completely different from WTSB and something sort of more canon compliant (you could use my OCs or Tess and Daisy for the other characters because I deliberately left it open), but I inserted OC Iris and a little bit of what I imagined Alec's background might've been like in my AU. I've made A LOT of changes to my story since then, and THIS IS NOT "When the Storm Breaks".**

The first time she sees Alec Hardy fall in love, he's nine-years-old and they've just met.

Iris's first impression of Alec isn't a good one. He strikes her as a grumpy, sullen, rude child that spends far too much time off by himself, and resembles his useless father. She thinks he'll turn out to be exactly like his idiot father, until she sees him fall in love.

He finds it in the swollen brook behind his school. Someone tried to drown the poor little creature and they very nearly succeeded. He comes home soaking wet and shivering, and brings it into the house, wrapped up in his jacket. It's the ugliest puppy she's ever seen, and Iris knows even before they clean it up that it's not going to live much longer. She tries to tell Alec this, but he won't listen. His face is flushed and his eyes are bright, and for the first time he's looking at her and he's talking to her. She tries to warn him, but she can't bring herself to tell him her fears. She lets Alec keep the puppy, and he actually flings his arms around her and hugs her tight.

He keeps that thing alive for six weeks, six weeks longer than she ever expected it to last. Alec is determined and he loves it so much, but the puppy isn't strong enough, and they can't afford the proper care. Six weeks later, the puppy dies. He and Iris bury it in the backyard, and Iris holds him as he struggles not to cry. That's when she realizes that she also fell in love with that troubled little boy that has a heart for hopeless causes, just like her.

The second time she sees Alec Hardy fall in love, he's older, much older than she expected.

Alec can still be grumpy and rude and sullen, and he still tends to spend far too much time off by himself, but she knows now that he's nothing like his useless father. He's twenty-three years old, he's just been made DS, and she couldn't be prouder of him if he was her actual biological son. He's a good detective and an even better man. Her husband keeps her updated on his career and his stellar success rate that he's too modest to admit. Iris thinks that if he can be happy devoting his life to his career than she can be too. And then her husband tells her that he thinks Alec's smitten with one of the young DCs.

Iris doesn't believe it until she meets the woman. It's easy to see why any man would fall in love with a confident woman like that, but Iris can't believe that Alec would be one of them. But he is, oh boy, he is so in love with her. Alec can't take his bright eyes off the woman, and he's blushing, and he's dropping things, and he's smiling, and he's _laughing_. Iris takes a good long look at the woman, and catches her blushing and smiling fondly at Alec. Iris decides that if that's what Alec wants, she'll do everything in her power to make it happen. It takes some time, and a very serious conversation between Iris and the woman about the future and how much Iris loves that troubled boy with a heart for hopeless causes, but Iris gets her wish.

Alec hugs Iris before they leave on their honeymoon and he tells her he loves her. And Iris cries and watches that other woman take his hand, and hopes that she'll take care of him in sickness and in health.

The third time she sees Alec Hardy fall in love, he's young, much younger than she expected.

Alec isn't as rude or grumpy or sullen as he used to be, his wife took care of that. And Iris finds herself spending far too much time by herself, as Alec's career continues to skyrocket, and his wife monopolizes what little free time he has to spare. But her husband assures her that he's doing well, and he'll be promoted to DI soon, and Iris is content that he's happy.

Then the baby comes. Alec calls her at three AM in a panic. Iris rushes to the hospital, and finds him pacing in the waiting room and storming and raging at the nurses, and the receptionist, and anyone he can find. They kicked him out of the delivery room, and he's wild-eyed and terrified. He flings his arms around her, and Iris holds him as he struggles not to cry.

The baby arrives six and a half hours later, and she's beautiful and healthy. Alec is shaking so hard that he's afraid to hold her, but he can't take his bright eyes off of her. Iris pushes him down into the chair, and lays his daughter in his arms for the first time. And Alec cries, and tells his newborn daughter how much he loves her already.

Iris steps outside and breaks down in the waiting room, because that little troubled boy is all grown up now with a family of his own.

The years pass, and Iris watches him fall deeper and deeper in love with his daughter. And Iris falls in love too with that little girl. That little girl turns out to be the single bright spot in Iris's life when her husband dies suddenly on the day Alec becomes a DI. Alec assures her that he'll make her proud, and that he'll take care of her. Iris tells him she's already proud of him, and that she can take care of herself. But she cries after he leaves. Alec's wife goes back to work, and Iris steps in to take care of their daughter. For a while, Iris surrounds herself with that little girl's laughter. She pretends not to notice the way Alec buries himself in his work, and the other woman starts to pull away.

Then one dark night, Alec Hardy loses everything.

Alec tells her that he had the affair, but Iris doesn't believe him. He leaves anyway. Iris stays because she loves that little girl, and watching over her is the only thing that troubled man with a heart too broken asks of her.

The fourth time she sees Alec Hardy falls in love, she's shocked.

Alec's a grumpier, quieter, broody man that spends far too much time by himself. It hurts her to see him so bitter and broken, but he gets the surgery, and she brings his daughter back to him little by little. It doesn't happen overnight, but eventually one evening she hears his daughter laughing, accompanied by a hoarse wheezing sound that finally swells into that familiar laughter that once filled that little house, when he was a younger, happier man. Iris comes back into the room and demands to know what's so funny, and Alec and his daughter look at each other and smile. Suddenly, Iris knows that his daughter has realized how much her father loves her, and everything's going to be fine.

She doesn't know where the hell he finds Ellie Miller, but she sincerely hopes it wasn't in a swollen brook. He brings her in soaking wet and wrapped up in his jacket, and Iris immediately thinks of the puppy that he couldn't save. Iris doesn't know what to make of Ellie the first time they meet, and clearly neither does Alec. He's not blushing, and he's not dropping things, and he's not quite smiling, but there's a softness in his eyes when they follow her around. Ellie's snapping at him, and Alec's grumping at her. Iris can't figure them out, so she stops trying.

Ellie keeps coming back, and Alec doesn't spend nearly as much time off by himself anymore. The fourth time Ellie visits, they're having a row, and then a minute later Iris walks in on them snogging. Iris drops the tea kettle, and Alec and Ellie break apart and blush. Embarrassed, Ellie leaves, and Iris shoves Alec out the door after her. He returns alone, but he offers Iris a distracted smile that she hasn't seen in years. The next time Ellie visits Iris has a very serious conversation with her, but it turns out that Ellie's been taking care of that troubled man, and healing his heart a lot longer than she expected. Iris cries after Ellie leaves and takes Alec with her, because this time as Iris watches them walk out together, she knows that Alec will be taken care of.

The last time she sees Alec Hardy fall in love, she's dying.

Alec is grumpier, quieter, and sad, and spends far too much time by her hospital bedside, because he knows she's dying too. It breaks her heart seeing him like this. She tries to tell him that she's fine, and that she can take care of herself. He struggles not to cry and she realizes that she can't anymore.

Usually, Ellie comes with him. Sometimes she brings her little boy Fred with her, who looks up to Alec like Alec used to look up to her late husband. Fred's nine now, the exact age that Alec was when they first met. Alec tells her that Fred keeps asking them for a puppy, and she suspects that he'll wear Alec down very soon. Ellie's eldest Tom is studying abroad, but he sends his love via texts and videos that Iris still doesn't understand.

And that little girl of Alec's that she spent so many years taking care of and loving is now a wife and a mother. Alec and Iris quietly cried through the wedding, and that little girl that wasn't so little anymore had to snap at them to stop being so soppy, while she wiped away tears of her own. Iris thinks that even if she had lived long enough to lose all of her memories, she never would've forgotten the way Alec looked at his daughter as he gave her away, and danced with her one last time. She tries to remember how happy he was that day when she sees him now.

"You need to go," she tells him.

"I'm not leaving you," Alec insists.

So, Ellie arranges for Alec's daughter to come to them instead.

Alec's daughter lays her newborn daughter in Alec's arms, and he falls in love immediately with his granddaughter. He's not shaking quite as badly as he was the first time, and he's older, much older. He tells her how much he loves her already, and then he passes her to Iris. They have to hold her arms steady. All three of them are crying, and Iris tells them to stop it or they'll wake the baby.

"We named her Iris."

Iris falls in love all over again, and she can't stop. She looks at Alec, his daughter, and his grand-daughter, and she wonders how she could have ever been so foolish to think that troubled boy who looked exactly like his useless father was incapable of love.

They manage to hold themselves together until his daughter leaves and takes the baby with her. As soon as the door shuts behind them, Alec sees it in her eyes. He crumbles. He tells her he loves her and she tells him not to cry.

"Come here, darling," she whispers.

Alec slides into the bed beside her and holds her until she dies.

 **A/N: Like I said this is NOT "When the Storm Breaks" and I wrote this way before I had my route for that story set, but I always imagined some of the earlier scenes when Alec's younger as my AU head-canon. There is a short second chapter that's Alec/Ellie that I might post eventually.**


	2. The Fourth Time He Fell In Love: Ellie

**The Fourth Time He Fell in Love: Ellie**

 **A/N: I wrote this right after I wrote the first part but I was planning on posting it separately. It's been collecting dust on my hard drive so I figured I'd just tack it on as a second chapter. Same disclaimers apply.**

She meets her on a Tuesday.

It's three A.M. and Alec is pacing in the other bedroom above her. He's had some trouble sleeping since he got the pacemaker and she starts to drift off when suddenly she hears the muffled sound of his voice. His footsteps on the stairs follow and she's tossing on her housecoat and running downstairs to catch him in the foyer. He's wide awake and fully dressed and startled by her presence. His face is open and lined with worry.

"Is she –"

"Yeah, she's fine," Alec reassures her, his face softening like it always does when he talks about his daughter. But he's got his shoes on and he's halfway out the door.

"Is it –"

"No," Alec snaps before she can bring up the other woman.

"Then what –"

"Go back to sleep," he tells her quietly and clasps her shoulder gently. "I didn't mean to wake you."

His mobile rings again and he lets go of her to answer it.

"I'll be there in less than an hour," he barks into the speaker and glances at his watch. "She what -? Bloody hell, that infuriating woman – no, I'm coming down there. Can I talk to her?"

He pulls the door shut behind him, almost taking Iris's fingers with it. She slips outside and stands in the cold, watching as Alec shrugs into his coat and struggles to juggle the keys and his mobile at the same time. His attention is somewhere else miles away and his voice is soft now, too soft for her once sharp ears. She thinks he might've been lying about it not being his daughter because even though she can't hear him, she can still see how affected he is by this voice on the other end of a line.

She doesn't go back to sleep.

Six and a half hours later the front door bangs open and she hears him in the kitchen. There's a trail of mud and water leading from the foyer and Iris finds him at the end of it, standing in a puddle of water with a tea towel. He's got his back to her and she thinks that maybe she over reacted and then she starts wondering about where all the water came from and suddenly she's thinking of a troubled little boy walking a mile from a swollen brook carrying -

"Just hold still, damn it!"

"I'm fine!"

"Shut up and let me take care of this."

Iris splashes into the kitchen and Alec whips around. There's a flash of something almost feral in his eyes and he instinctively moves his whole body so that he's blocking her from Iris's view, like he's used to protecting her from something.

"What's going on?" Iris asks, freezing. Alec relaxes when he realizes it's only Iris but he doesn't move or say anything as if he has no idea what to tell her. "Alec?"

Iris steps toward him and Alec shyly shuffles aside as a white hand pushes him out of the way. Iris sees a woman drenched from head to toe with damp curling dark hair and large liquid brown eyes in a ghostly white face. Perhaps it's the way Alec's intently gazing at her and guiltily glancing at Iris, or the fact that this woman is wrapped up in his coat, but for some inexplicable reason, this woman reminds Iris of that sick hopeless puppy that Alec rescued from the brook and dragged into her kitchen decades ago. The woman smiles and even though it doesn't quite reach those sad, dark eyes, Iris notes that there's more there than just a hopeless case.

"Sorry, it's my fault and I'll clean it up –"

"I'll get it," Alec interrupts her. "Sit down, Miller."

"Actually, it's Richardson now, Ellie Richardson," Ellie introduces herself smiling a little bit wider and deliberately ignoring Alec. "You must be Iris?"

Iris can't do much more than nod and give this woman what she hopes is a passably polite smile. It surprises her that Alec's told her who she was, then again they did just storm into her house and flood the kitchen.

"I'll get a mop," Iris decides, surveying the disaster. Where in god's name did all the water come from? "And some blankets," she adds when she sees how wet Ellie is and that Alec's done nothing other than give her his coat. What the hell happened to the poor woman? She's about to ask when Alec silently shakes his head at her. _Later_. Iris sighs and leaves them.

She gives them ten minutes and comes back to find them both on their hands and knees squabbling over an empty roll of paper towels and a muddy tea towel and a floor that looks just as wet as it did before she left. Iris hands them the blankets and kicks them out of the kitchen because they're useless and too busy arguing to be of any help. She returns to the sitting room with tea to find them still sniping at each other, but there's a pile of wet clothing spread out to dry a little that Iris deliberately doesn't look too closely at and they've both got some color back in their face. Alec keeps getting up to throw another blanket on Ellie or wrap one of them more snugly around her but his tongue is scathing and hers is just as razor sharp. And yet Ellie isn't anything like her quiet Alec, she smiles easily at Iris and can chatter on to the point where she obviously wears on Alec. It's when Iris asks a very simple question about her sons' father that Ellie falters and asks to use the loo. That's when Alec explains in two sentences who exactly _Miller_ is and what exactly Iris saw in her sad eyes. Iris doesn't ask any more questions after that. But she worries as his eyes follow the woman around the room that Alec has found himself another hopeless cause. Then Ellie smacks Alec and she wonders if she's got it all wrong.

Iris collects the empty tea cups and spends a long time in the kitchen trying to figure the pair out. After about five minutes of listening to them arguing she decides she must've been imagining things, but then Alec walks Ellie out and his voice is soft again like a lover's caress. Iris tries not to but she watches them pause and look at each other and then get into the car together.

She waits for Alec when he comes home from dropping her off again wherever he found her in the first place. He comes in cursing Miller and Iris never gets to ask what happened because he goes off on a rant about how irritating she is and tells her instead about what she used to do when they worked together.

Iris gives up trying to figure them out after that.

Four weeks later she breaks her mother's tea kettle, a family heirloom, because she walks in on them snogging in the middle of the kitchen. Not even thirty seconds ago they were having a full out row and suddenly they're so wrapped up in each other that Iris has to shatter a porcelain tea kettle before the rest of the world floods back in on them. Seeing Alec blush like that for the first time since he was young and in love with that other woman is well worth the scalding image. Ellie quickly leaves in embarrassment and Alec gazes after her like a moron until Iris pushes him out the door.

"Go after her."

He does and when he comes back in alone he's smiling.

Two weeks later, Iris invites her over for a cup of tea.

"Are you in love with my son?" she asks her, bluntly. She's not going to ignore her instincts or screw up this time, that's for sure. But Ellie frowns for a moment and she realizes she already has. She must be getting old because for the first time she referred to Alec as her son.

"Alec, my –" Iris starts to correct herself but Ellie smiles and stretches her hand across the table to cover hers.

"I can't help it. Your son's a good man."

The other woman had told her that too, but Ellie squeezes Iris's wrinkled hand and tells her what happened the day he picked her up at three A.M. and later brought her into Iris's kitchen. And then she tells Iris about one of the many times she took Alec home with her and Iris realizes that Alec wasn't as alone as she thought during those dark years that followed the affair.

"Why didn't he ever mention you?"

Ellie blinks and finishes off her tea.

"He never mentioned you either or his daughter, I had to guess her name after months of knowing him… He was a little more open after that…"Ellie trails off and turns her eyes toward the window. Iris's heart breaks for Alec because there was a time when he couldn't stop talking about his daughter. She thinks of the bitter and broken and ill man that had stumbled into her house four months ago and she looks at the woman before her and wonders at her. She reaches across the table and takes Ellie's hand again.

"Thank you," Iris whispers. "He left but I should've –"

"Don't blame yourself, he's the most obstinate man in Britain," she grumbles, looking beyond Iris.

And Alec walks in.

He freezes as they both look at him.

"What's going on?" he asks.

"Nothing," Ellie says innocently and shares a smile with Iris. Alec stares at Iris for a long time and then he slides into the chair between them. Ellie gets up to ring her eldest son and Alec turns to Iris.

"What did you say to her?" He's still tense and his eyes are on the door.

Iris gets up and kisses his forehead.

"She's good for you," she murmurs and passes a hand through his hair.

Alec sighs and relaxes. When Iris returns to the kitchen, Ellie is back and Alec has his chair pushed as close to hers as the table will allow. They don't hear her and Iris steps out of sight to watch them. Ellie says something and Alec moves his hand from the back of her chair to the nape of her neck. He leans closer and brushes his lips over her ear.

"She didn't try to talk you into marrying me I hope," he quips and Ellie smirks.

"No, not yet, but she said it's okay if I take you out on a date, as long as I bring you home by midnight," she teases him.

"Or you could bring me home now…"

They look at each other and Ellie brushes the hair back from his forehead.

"Do you want to come home with me?" Ellie asks seriously.

Alec reaches out and cradles her face within his hands. He brings her closer and presses his lips to her forehead.

"Fred and Tom want to see you again," Ellie tells him and covers his hands with hers.

"Do they?" Alec wonders. Ellie nods and catches at his collar before he can pull away. She tilts her head and kisses him chastely.

"Come home with me," Ellie whispers and rests her temple against his. Alec expels a shaky breath and Ellie drops her head to his shoulder as he curves his arm around her.

"I missed you," he says so softly that Iris almost doesn't hear it.

"I missed you too," she replies.

He turns his head and kisses the top of hers. His eyes close and Ellie rests her hand over his heart.

"Take me home, Ellie," he whispers into her hair. "Take me home."

Iris backs away from the door and even if she had dropped the tea kettle again she doubts they would've noticed. She waits a long time before she walks back into that kitchen and they act like nothing happened but she's already seen everything.

Alec leaves on a Tuesday.

"Don't wait up. I'll be back later," he tells her and clasps her shoulder gently.

"No, you won't," Iris says and smiles as Ellie joins them. Iris kisses Alec on the cheek and then Ellie.

"Take care of that idiot, will you?"

Ellie laughs but she takes Alec by the hand, and drags him out into the sunlight. Iris watches them walk back to Ellie's car hand in hand, and she knows Alec isn't coming back. She goes back to the empty kitchen and she cries; because for the first time in almost three years, she knows that thanks to Ellie her son is going to be alright.

 **A/N: Hope you liked it!**


End file.
